


Jakku

by Moosegirl6



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), game of thrones
Genre: Basically this is just, F/M, GOT Secret Santa present, Star Wars - Freeform, if Arya was Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 08:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13026945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moosegirl6/pseuds/Moosegirl6
Summary: Arry had been on Jakku for as long as she could remember. Beyond the sand and the empty space all she could remember were flashes of a life she had, of a family who had left her. But then the Empire came and she couldn’t wait any longer.





	Jakku

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Secret Santa present for gendryxaryatrash on tumblr, Merry Christmas!

It was usually loud in here, the sounds from the speakers drowning out all conversations. If you looked around the room you might think that this was just another run down pub in just another back-water solar system.   
Of course if you knew what to look for, then you might see the way eyes darted and bodies shifted, more than one hand reaching toward a concealed pocket. There may have been dust on the floor and the stink of poverty in the air, but this was not just the middle of nowhere. Those shabby booths hid secrets.   
This crumbling tavern, as forsaken as it appeared, was the centre for the Brotherhood.  
Most members of the Brotherhood would never set foot here, and most who set foot here would never hear of the Brotherhood, but it was in this place that plans were drawn and lives were changed.

Once there was a girl. She worked behind the bar sometimes, when there were busy days and the winds were too high for scavenging. She didn’t seem to mind the dust in the mugs or the stench of the customers, so they let her work. Her grey eyes were sharp though, and soon she saw and soon she understood. She would watch men enter, know which ships they had arrived on, what business they claimed to have brought, and she would wait.

She would wait to see what happened to them, if they were in favour or out, if they ever came back. She would wait to hear news, the mundane matters of trade prices and politics. She wanted to hear things of the galaxy, stories of adventure, myths she no longer believed in. Most of all she looked for a face that she knew. One with steely grey eyes, or sharp blue, a face that smiled and ruffled her hair, or one that frowned and told her to stand up straight. But they never came. And one day she stopped looking for her family.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

The market was busy and Arry was late, but that didn’t mean she was going to let some oaf push her over.

The boy turned his head back to look at her but kept running, and then he was gone behind the tents and the stalls. Arry frowned and her feet paused. People never looked like that unless there was trouble coming. She glanced over her shoulder, back towards her speeder. There were soldiers nearby, figures wrapped in stiff white armour that she had seen only a few times in her life. Beric Dondarian would want to hear about this. She didn’t like him, but at least he wasn’t a dictator. She hurried towards the tavern, hoping one of them had dragged themselves there by now.

When the door swung open and her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside, her gut twisted.

In the corner where Thoros spent his days draining tankards dry, a boy sat with blood on his cheek and sweat pressing his hair to his face. His head was bent towards the table, and he was speaking quickly, but from here she had no hope of hearing. Dondarian was there, with a frown on his face and a hand on the table in front of the priest, as though holding him back.

She took a step forward and for the smallest of moments she met Thoros’ eye. But then the door was blown in and Arry was on the floor.

There was debris everywhere, but the door had protected her from most of it. When the soldiers stomped their way in, she crawled under a table, reaching for anything that she could wield. The noise of blasters was louder than she expected, and Thoros was laughing somewhere. She pushed through a gap in the chairs and pulling herself across the floor on her stomach, finding an opening to peer through. Thoros had a blaster to his chest, his own raised high. Dondarian was on the floor face down. He might have been dead, but they said he had been dead many times before and he always came back to the same booth in this godsforsaken tavern. She watched his body for a second before turning her gaze away. There was shuffling on the other side of the room; someone was making the rubble creak. Through the gap, Arry’s eyes met his. They were blue and wide and terrified. She brought a finger up to her lips. The shuffling stopped.

The soldiers were talking now, but she didn’t listen; she didn’t need to. Thoros would either talk his way out of this or die. She pushed herself along the floor again, this time towards the door. The splinters from the chair-leg in her hand dug into her palm, but she kept silent and kept moving.

The blasters were lowering now and Thoros’ voice was weaving a lullaby for the Empire’s dogs.

_Only loyalty you’ll find here, our gracious king has nothing to fear._

Arry almost scoffed. Not a day went by without the Brotherhood finding a new way to insult the King. The soldiers were close to him now, listening to his story, his pleas for mercy. Arry saw an opportunity. Drawing her feet up under her, she stood as silently as she could and slipped across the room like a ghost. The boy was where she had left him, and when she nodded at him he understood. He pulled his limbs out from under the rubble and she readied herself to run.

_If you’ll just lower your gun, we’ll sell you an enemy son._

Thoros’ teeth shone yellow as he smiled at her. She would have spat at him, but a blank white face was turning towards her and she didn’t have time. She swung out with her weapon and then span to where the door had been. The boy followed and so did the soldiers.

They were shooting again, and they could feel the blasts skimming past them. Arry pushed the boy to the side, shoving him down a side alley. Left, then back and then out to –

She slammed them back against the wall, just in time to miss twenty or so pairs of stomping boots storming past them. She looked back and the alley was empty. Finally, she rounded on the boy next to her.

“What the  _hell_ were you doing?”

His face was still drenched with sweat, and Arry would have called him scared if her heart wasn’t pounding quite so much.

“I- I thought they could help. The Brotherhood. I’ve heard that they help people the Empire are looking for.”

She paused and looked at him. He didn’t look important, just young. But there are other things that make you important, like being wanted.

“They were going to sell you, idiot. You don’t go to the Brotherhood looking for safety, you go for profit.”

His forehead scrunched into a scowl. She almost laughed. This wanted man, brave enough to run from the Empire, couldn’t possibly so naïve.

“But they fight for the people.”

“They fight for themselves. Nobody fights for the people.”

“What about the resistance?”

“What do you know of the resistance?”

Her grip on his arm was strong, her small fingers digging into his upper arm. His eyes met hers, more uncertain this time.

“Are you one of the resistance?” Her eyes were as firm as her hand, but her nostrils flared and the boy spoke before he meant to.

“Yes.”

“Take me with you.”

The whispered words had barely left her mouth before they heard shouts again, too close this time. They turned and looked at the mess of the town before them. Arry had been here for years, but would never think it beautiful. But now it was crumbling.

“Come on.” The boy said, reaching for her hand, “My name’s Gendry.”

“Arry. And I don’t need to hold your hand.”

He nodded but she had already left the alley, walking quickly down the sandy street, breaking into a run at the corner where they met the open dunes.

Arry had seen the Empire’s crafts before, the imposing beasts that hid from no one, but she had never seen so many as this. The air field was red with Lannister ships, sprawling out like flies on a piece of meat. Arry’s speeder was on the far side, just beyond the fence. She turned back to the market, to the place where commercial junk waited to be scrapped.

“We need a ship.”

If she were not under fire she would have rolled her eyes.

“Yes, stupid, of course we need a ship. Now come on!”

She pointed to a large craft, a CE-2 transport that had seen better days, but there were red birds in the sky now and fire was falling.

As a line of gunfire headed towards it, she pushed Gendry in the opposite direction, running towards the edge of the field where the forgotten garbage sat.

With the creaking door barely up behind them he turned for the cockpit. She pushed him back, and yelled as she ran.

“The guns are down there, start firing as soon as I tell you!”

There was metal poking through the seat covers and the worn controls shook beneath her hands, but she kept on. It  _would_ fly.

Somehow, in a haze of fear and inexperience, a lost girl and an escaped boy disappeared before the eyes of an entire battalion of Empire ships. One minute the air was hot with gunfire and the world of sand and sky was spinning and then they were in the darkness, with only stars and debris around them.

In the depths of space, where there was no one to hear, the girl thanked the boy. He nodded and smiled for the first time, his lips pulling across his face awkwardly, as though he had forgotten how to smile. She turned back to the controls, but his eyes stayed fixed on her.

Nothing ever happens on Jakku. It’s a dead trading post, a nothing planet not worth thinking about. The Brotherhood are there because nobody else is. Where better to stash your treasures away?  
But once there was a battle here, and the Empire came. They searched for rebellion, for a boy and his betrayal. But the boy was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the girl.

 


End file.
